Adoption families tend to go through a trend that at first leans towards keeping their child safe and away from any possible dangers, including possible exposure to their biological family. Adoption families, specifically those with their child born in China, will often know little to nothing about their child’s origin.
At a certain age in conjunction with the parents’ graces, adopted children begin to wonder about their birth. This notion tends to be strongest in international adoptions as the children often bear no resemblance to their adoption families and are reminded of their true heritage on a daily basis.
In order to ease anxieties and false hopes, adoption families will often travel to their child’s country of origin as a vacation and casually search for indications of a possible link with their biological family. The chance of finding the child’s origins beyond cultural and historical information remains highly unlikely and should not be emphasized. Odds of finding the biological parents of an abandoned child proves to be the most difficult of tasks and requires pure luck.
Another consideration for adoption families finding biological parents is travel restrictions and difficulties in navigating far-stretches of the world. Northern China provides an expanse of poverty and desolation with little internal infrastructure, making any true determination of lineage nearly impossible. Also, areas with political instability or in the midst of a power struggle should not be traveled to until the situation settles. The safety of the child should always be paramount regardless of their hopes of finding a biological match.
Adoption families need to work together as individuals to quell certain anxieties about searching for a child’s biological parents. It can often be a sensitive subject for both parent and child, as the child feels it to be their right to meet their biological parents, while parents often feel offended by their child’s desire or nervous about their expectations.
